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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26299036">Waking Nightmares</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/lancer365/pseuds/lancer365'>lancer365</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Law &amp; Order: SVU</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Dark, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Random &amp; Short</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 05:54:01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,129</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26299036</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/lancer365/pseuds/lancer365</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes a case takes its toll.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Olivia Benson/Alexandra Cabot</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>23</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Waking Nightmares</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><strong>A.N. </strong>Just some random freewriting I did. Maybe someone will like it. I’m not sure where it came from, but I’ve had it for a long time. I just wanted to try writing in a different tense and thought I’d share.</p>
<p>------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</p>
<p>
  <strong>Waking Nightmares</strong>
</p>
<p>Black, vacant eyes glazed and glassy. They're watching her but it doesn't make sense because they shouldn't be able to. They can't.</p>
<p>Cries for help that were never answered or answered too late, invade her ears and torture her with their wailing. How many others has she not been able to reach?</p>
<p>Blood surrounds her; she has a special relationship with it now. It stains her hands.</p>
<p>She's running, chasing after a perp that gets away.</p>
<p>A gun points between her eyes; the hollowed barrel cold against her skin. At the opposite end, the mother who never asked for her.</p>
<p>
  <em>*BANG*</em>
</p>
<p>She jolts awake, her chest heaving shallow and rapid.</p>
<p>Quietly, she suffers alone, staring—eyes wide—at the ceiling.</p>
<p>Paralyzed.</p>
<p>The seizing pain…it hurts, it feels real as it spreads through her chest and she bites back the metallic taste in her mouth, her heart slamming against her breastbone, thumping desperate in her ears.</p>
<p>When the pain subsides, she shivers at the breeze mixing with the cold sweat on her brow. She breathes in and out deep, finding her wills.</p>
<p>Her surroundings slowly sharpen into view; furniture, knick-knacks, and familiar items taking solid shape as a vision tunneled by fear becomes clear.</p>
<p>She's back to a recognizable place, or so she thinks.</p>
<p>Shadows shroud the room but there's warmth beside her. She ignores it and sits up, swinging her legs over the bedside and bracing the edge, her brown eyes black in the night.</p>
<p>She just needs something to help her get back to sleep, to dull her reoccurring terror.</p>
<p>Standing, a wave of vertigo catches her off-balance and she stumbles to the cracked bedroom door, leaning against its frame for a steeling moment. She pulls the door open, her eyes scanning the empty living room.</p>
<p>The apartment doesn't feel the same. Its warmth is ice cold; the space only holding a hair-raising darkness.</p>
<p>A small beacon of light glows from the kitchen and she trudges toward it, knowing just the thing to calm her.</p>
<p>But something floats in the midst, watching her.</p>
<p>She turns and freezes, muscles tight as her heart leaps again, chills rushing down her back. A humanoid shadow and its darkness engulf the living room.</p>
<p><em>‘Ignore it.’</em> She tries to look away, rounding the corner into the kitchen.</p>
<p>It’s still there, an ominous aura of malice.  </p>
<p>The shadow nears; she can feel it sinisterly looming about. In and out, her breaths grow heavier with each passing second, blackness clouding her vision again as her chest heaves.</p>
<p>From a cupboard she grabs a bottle of scotch and pulls closer the first cup on the counter within her reach, yanking the loosened cork from the bottle’s neck.</p>
<p><em>'It's right beside me. I feel it.’ </em>She swallows the painful lump in her throat and furrows her brow<em>. ‘Don’t look over. Don’t let it intimidate you. It wants to see you scared.'</em></p>
<p>The shadow feels familiar, reminding her of pain she used to know.</p>
<p>Strangling the bottle at its neck she tries to pour but her hand won’t stop shaking. She all but slams the bottle down and looks to the bedroom's open doorway, her eyes watering.</p>
<p>The white doorframe outlines, contrasts against the beckoning void it harbors beyond, and something watching her from the abyss wants to pull her back in.</p>
<p>The bottle drags across the counter with a scrape. Shuddering breaths take her as she tries to pour the bottle’s contents again. Her hand shakes and her lip begins to quiver. There's no escaping this consuming darkness.</p>
<p><em>“I guess you’re more like me than you want to believe.”</em> Her mother’s voice enters her thoughts.</p>
<p>She gives up with the cup, turning to face the shadow head-on as she backs up, receding deeper into the one-aisle kitchen, her knuckles white around the bottle in her grasp.</p>
<p>The shadow stands before her; a surmounting, darker than black entity blocking her only exit. Her heart races, her chest tightening as her back hits the wall and she slides down, sitting on the floor. <em>‘I can’t breathe.’</em></p>
<p>Unworldly, unreal, something's happening that she can't explain. She's stuck in a twisted limbo between two worlds.  </p>
<p>The shadow sinks to her level.</p>
<p>"Liv."</p>
<p>It pries the bottle from her grasp and grabs her face, slender fingers pressing to her cheeks with tenderness behind the gesture.<em> ‘Hands?’</em></p>
<p>"Liv."</p>
<p>It corners her as it leans forward. She tries to pull away, turn her face, but she’s trapped. It won’t let her go.</p>
<p>
  <em>‘Wait?’</em>
</p>
<p>Lavender. She smells that and a faint afterthought of <em>A Midnight’s Kiss </em>perfume; the smell of wealth and luxury so distinct. "Alex." She breathes out, turning to the shadow’s featureless face.</p>
<p>"Yes, yes it's me Liv."</p>
<p>The hands at her face squeeze a little, and she puts a hand on the owner's wrist. <em>'What if it's all a trick…'</em>  Olivia squeezes her eyes shut and furrows her brow. She attempts to hang her head, but the hands won’t let her, catching her chin.</p>
<p>"Focus on me Liv."</p>
<p>
  <em>‘No.’</em>
</p>
<p>She tightens her hand around that wrist.</p>
<p>"Liv, just take a breath and open your eyes."</p>
<p>How can she when they feel like they're sewn shut?</p>
<p>Warmth touches her chest, fingers pressing to her heart. "Jesus Liv."</p>
<p>The hand must’ve felt her heart’s disquieted racing.</p>
<p>"Alex."</p>
<p>A pause stills the air. "I'm still here."</p>
<p>The voice sounds sadder than before.</p>
<p>"Open your eyes Liv."</p>
<p>Sympathy bleeds into the voice’s words.</p>
<p>She concentrates on the alluring scent, and seeing the image of Alex captured in her thoughts, she opens her eyes.  </p>
<p>The kitchen’s overhead lights blind her burning eyes. The bare and prominent worry in Alex's gaze confuses her, but her breaths slow as Alex pulls her into an embrace and holds her.</p><hr/>
<p>A young boy, extensively beaten by his own mother, found murdered in a basement.</p>
<p>He was also a product of rape.</p>
<p>Alex's brow furrowed over Olivia's shoulder.</p>
<p>She watched the detective become more riled with each passing week the case stayed open. She advised Olivia to back off but was met with a fervent “No”.</p>
<p>The damage was probably done the moment Olivia first visited the crime scene.</p>
<p>The photos that crossed her desk were hard enough to stomach. But Olivia had been there in person, witnessing the sight of the hole in the boy’s head and the bruised wounds along his body for herself.</p>
<p>Liv…she fought too hard, stayed up too late, ruminating, <em>staring</em> at those photos in the case file for too long.</p>
<p> </p>
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